To All My Freshman Babies Who Are Panicking Right Now About How Much Your College Textbooks Cost: Yeah,

tw // blood

    There is a quiet, fleeting, moment, when the blade sinks itself into his ribcage and just below his heart, where the world whites out at the edges. He feels his lungs rattle in his chest, feels the metallic taste of blood well up from the back of his throat. He feels Phil’s shaking hands, tremors running down the metal and into his spine and his throat and the lips he so lightly twists into a smile. 

    “Hey, Phil.” Wilbur says, feeling his father slip further down, head bowed in grief. “It’s cold.”

    Phil keens low and quiet into his chest, singed wings draping over Wilbur, trying their best to block out the cold he knows comes from somewhere within him. He appreciates the gesture nonetheless. 

    He hears fireworks in the distance, and sees blue and red through the feathers. L’manburg colors. He silently thanks his brother for the last reminder of his symphony, his unfinished verse. He wonders if his death will be a finishing bar, or perhaps a catalyst for a new measure. He wonders if Tommy knows that the mantle has been passed, and that he’s sorry for the weight that ties a noose around his younger brother’s neck. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, he wants to plead, you’re not supposed to carry the weight of my failures on your shoulders. He hopes Tommy runs away, that he leaves this unfinished song and go write for himself a new one, a happier one. 

    “Are you proud of me?” Wilbur finds himself whispering, half hoping Phil doesn’t hear, and finding himself feeling too tired to care. He supposes death did that to a person. Leaves them tired and cold and strangely light. Phil’s hands don’t stop shaking, and red paints his palms and fingers and the hem of his cloak. Wilbur huffs a laugh at his father’s silence.

    “You don’t have to answer that, I think I know what you’re gonna say anyway.” Wilbur says, swallowing back a lungful of blood and air, bringing a hand up to card through the man’s blond hair. Phil shudders. “I wouldn’t be proud of me either.”

    Phil lets out a broken sound at this, and somewhere in Wil’s bleeding chest, he feels a twinge of shame. 

    “Forget about me, Phil.” Wilbur says into the air, feeling sweat and blood and tears drip down his chin. It stains the tips of Phil’s hair. “It’ll be easier that way, I think.”

    Phil brings a hand up to clutch at Wilbur’s arm, head still burrowed in his fast reddening shirt, and Wilbur stifles a gasp at where the movement jars his wound. The elder’s breathing is shallow, he opens and closes his mouth, words caught in his throat, like he’s choking on them.

    “Don’t cry, Phil.” Wilbur hums, voice thready and thin in the ash filled air, “I don’t want that to be the last thing I hear.”

    Phil sobs, and his back shakes with the weight of his grief and his loss. It must be agonizing, Wilbur thinks, to mourn your son while he still speaks. Then again, that won’t last for much longer.

    Wilbur strokes his father’s head, though his fading strength only allows him to curl his fingers, helpless as it falls wayside to the ground. 

    “You’ll be fine, dad.” Wilbur whispers, “You did the right thing. You got rid of the big bad, like the hero in the stories you used to tell.”

    Phil wails harder, and Wilbur thinks that maybe being a hero isn’t as appealing when it causes good men to cry. 

    “I’m tired.” He sighs, feeling his eyes slip shut, “I’ve been awake too long.”

    Phil reaches out with trembling fingers, bloodstained palms cradling his cheek.

    “I l-love yo u.” He chokes, the words broken and jilted, like a song through a broken speaker. 

    Wilbur feels his smile slip a bit, and bites back a strangled laugh, because Phil doesn’t deserve this, doesn’t deserve to have to paint the floor red with his own son’s blood. Another tally on his faults, he thinks, another red name for his ledger of wrongdoings. Even on his dying breath, he hurts the people he loves. 

    “I love you too.” He says, instead, because he refuses to leave without letting his father know that he loves him. That whatever happens, whatever consequences he’s left blazing at his wake, Wilbur soot does not hate his father.  That this isn’t some sort of cruel punishment or last hurrah. He thinks that maybe he just wants to be held, and that sleep comes so much easier when he’s safe in the arms of his childhood hero and protector. “I love you so much.”

     The static in his head grow louder, and he feels his heart give a shudder, and a beat, and the dark encroaches quickly, and through the gauze he hears a broken scream. Then, nothing.

consider: sherlock teasing john for his bad poetry, not realizing the love poems are about him 

"If the world is really dying, would you kiss one more time?"

"Only if you promise me that it won't be the last"

ALNST MY BELOVED

happy fucking birthday sad-ist and congrats for carrying this fandom on your back, who would we be without you

I think the most tragic part of Law’s character is that for so long he didn’t believe in unconditional love.

He thinks Rosinante saved him because he’s a D. He thinks he has to repay Rosinante for his sacrifices to mean something, when all Rosinante wanted was for Law to be free. Sengoku telling Law "don’t try to find a reason for someone’s love" truly hits like a punch to the gut because it’s so impactful—so fucking important. It completely shatters Law’s view of love (and life) and how it must be transactional.

Finally, he realizes that Rosinante just loved him. There was no debt to be paid, no expectation. He can love and be loved without reason.

the thing all sherlock holmes adaptations get wrong is making the guy an irredeemable asshole who treats everyone like shit . not only is it not reflective of the original stories they miss that “nice, smart, well mannered dude who snorts coke when he needs to think” is possibly the funniest character ever devised 

"You smoke?"

Tommy looked over at Schlatt. He was shaking a cigarette out of a pack and into his hand. Where he'd gotten it, Tommy didn't know. It was the afterlife; he didn't expect drugs to be in the afterlife.

"Fuckin'... no, I don't smoke," He huffed back, "What do you fuckin'..."

Schlatt shrugged, brought the cigarette to his lips, produced a lighter, and lit up. "Your loss."

Wilbur had warned Tommy that occasionally they'd fade in and out. The afterlife wasn't a concrete plane to be in, he'd said, so Tommy should prepare for him to pop in and out occasionally.

Tommy had thought he was ready. He was not.

He'd clung to the man ever since he'd died. He was the only person he had left who cared. At least, the only person he had left who cared and he could still talk to. And even if Wilbur was only going to be gone for a little bit (though time worked so strangely here, who really knew?), Tommy wasn't ready for that separation.

And he sure as hell wasn't ready to be left alone with Jschlatt.

He didn't like kids, that much was obvious. Or anyone, really.

Apparently he and Wilbur had talked quite a bit before Tommy's arrival, which Tommy couldn't blame him for; Wilbur had to talk to somebody, and until now the afterlife didn't have any options except for the previous tyrant. But the moment Schlatt had seen Tommy, palpable disgust had formed on his face and he had fled the scene.

That was fine by Tommy. He didn't like Tommy, and Tommy didn't like him.

But now that Wilbur was gone for a while, being around Schlatt was better than being alone.

Schlatt coughed after a drag. Tommy eyed him uneasily.

Schlatt didn't have scars, Tommy was noticing. Wilbur did. He had a big ugly one in his chest from where Phil had stabbed him, gaping and hard to ignore. Schlatt, having not died to something so physical, had no such thing. But his eyes looked vacant, tired, and bloodshot, and drool seemed to constantly drip down his chin. Disgusting motherfucker, Tommy thought.

It did get him thinking, though. He hadn't seen himself once since his death. When he'd asked Wilbur about his gash, Wilbur had confessed that all the injuries they'd received subsequent to their death would probably remain and hurt forever. Tommy himself had aches all over his body; Dream had done a number on him. He was left with a head that pounded almost constantly and a body that throbbed with every movement.

He wondered how he looked.

He cleared his throat and called, "Oi, bitch."

Schlatt looked to him, unimpressed. "Hm?"

"Ey, uh... so we're all a bit ghost-y now, yeah?"

"Sure."

"You gots your little... red... devil horns, 'n Wilbur's got his scar..." Tommy crossed his arms, "... What do I look like?"

Schlatt took pause, pulling the cigarette from his mouth. His lips fell to a frown as he scanned Tommy up and down, his eyes filling up with something that was almost, almost pity. Tommy's stomach sank; that didn't bode well.

Schlatt tore his eyes away from him and shook his head, gaze cast down.

Tommy swallowed nervously. "Well?"

The only thing Schlatt said after a long pause was, "Stay away from mirrors, kid."

i would like to propose a new fanon part of cwilburs design: a small cut in his face, from when ctommy hit him with the sword :)